Whether she ends up taking home the statue for Best Supporting Actress at tomorrow's Oscars or not, most would agree that Lupita Nyong'o has already bagged the award for Overall Brilliant Woman for her general being at this year's awards season. There's the flawless red carpet style, her shameless fangirling of Leonardo DiCaprio and other A-list stars, and now she's just delivered one of the most inspiring acceptance speeches we've heard in a long time. Somehow it managed to be sad, uplifting and funny all at once.
The 12 Years A Slave actress, who celebrates her 31st birthday today - Happy Birthday Lupita! – spoke at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood luncheon, where she was awarded the Best Breakthrough Performance.
Taking to the stage, Lupita told the crowd she wanted to talk about beauty, about 'black beauty. Dark beauty,' after receiving a heartwrenching letter from a young fan.
'I received a letter from a girl and I’d like to share just a small part of it with you: "Dear Lupita," it reads, "I think you’re really lucky to be this black but yet this successful in Hollywood overnight. I was just about to buy Dencia’s Whitenicious cream to lighten my skin when you appeared on the world map and saved me."'
If that part of the speech has't already got you choked, then the rest will (the full version of which can be read on Essence).
'I remember a time when I too felt unbeautiful,' Lupta told the room. 'I put on the TV and only saw pale skin, I got teased and taunted about my night-shaded skin… And when I was a teenager my self-hate grew worse, as you can imagine happens with adolescence. My mother reminded me often that she thought that I was beautiful but that was no consolation: She’s my mother, of course she’s supposed to think I am beautiful. And then Alek Wek came on the international scene. A celebrated model, she was dark as night, she was on all of the runways and in every magazine and everyone was talking about how beautiful she was. Even Oprah called her beautiful and that made it a fact. I couldn’t believe that people were embracing a woman who looked so much like me as beautiful. My complexion had always been an obstacle to overcome and all of a sudden, Oprah was telling me it wasn’t.'
So all you other Oscar nominees better have something decent up your collective couture sleeve, because Ms Nyong'o's just raised the bar...
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.